The colour of money

Don’t you love it when a complete underdog such as Enrico Gasparotto wins a race like Amstel Gold? Just goes to show big money does not equal big victories, writes Anthony Tan.

Thor Hushovd, $2.75 million. Cadel Evans, $3.4M. Philippe Gilbert, $3.85M.

Give or take a few hundred thousand dollars or so, depending on our ever-mercurial exchange rates, these are the annual salaries of BMC Racing's Big Three. For billionaire owner Andy Rihs, that's exactly $10M outlay for just three of the team's 26-rider roster contracted for the 2012 season.

Hardly mind-blowing relative to professional golfers or NBA basketballers or English Premier League footballers; some might even say pitiful for the monumental pain involved.

But aside from Team Sky, a figure equivalent to anywhere between 50 to more than 90 per cent of the total budget for rider salaries at just about every other team in the WorldTour. (Earlier this year, the UCI reported that the average salary among professionals riding for ProTeams and Pro Continental teams had increased from 190,000 Euros (approx. $A239K) in 2009 to €264,000 ($A332K) in 2012. The minimum wage, however, is far less. UCI rules stipulate a minimum annual salary of €30,000 ($38K), or €24,000 ($30K) for a first-year professional, on a ProTeam.)

Industry pundits estimate the BMC bicycle company's 2011 turnover to be somewhere around the $14M mark. So Rihs, with an estimated personal fortune of $2.5 billion, clearly didn't set up this team of superstars to augment his wealth, even if that's what he basically told me in January 2010 when he came to Australia during the Tour Down Under.

"The base logic [to selling] is that you must afford a certain (level of) promotion. If you don't afford it then you'll never get an image," he said. "We created the race team for the purpose of promoting our product."

The bottom line is that Rihs is simply a bike enthusiast at heart. A very rich bike enthusiast at heart.

But in paying his riders far above the norm ("You have to pay them right. You give them a little higher value... that's what we try to do," Rihs told me), two-thirds of his Big Three appeared to have become a little lax. And they wouldn't be the first generously remunerated athletes to fall foul of form; modern sporting history is littered with similar cases in point.

In fact, the most notable thing about BMC Racing this season is that, aside from Evans taking the time trial and overall classification at the Criterium International last month, they have recorded no other wins.

Hushovd was supposed to be good in Flanders and particularly Paris-Roubaix but was not. Conversely, Alessandro Ballan was solid in Flanders and finished third. But the Italian's decision to skip a turn with 56 kilometres remaining in Roubaix, just when eventual winner Tom Boonen latched onto the wheel of his teammate Niki Terpstra who had flown the coop, cost him (as well as Filippo Pozzato and Sebastien Turgot) any chance of victory.

Last Sunday in the Amstel Gold Race, Gilbert, a two-time winner and the defending champion, was supposed to be at or near his best. He was permitted the best-possible run-in to the finish by two of his BMC teammates to the foot of the Cauberg, the final climb of the day where, after 256.5km and 30 climbs previous, 'the race of a thousand turns' would end.

In the final 100 metres he would vacillate on its slopes as eventual winner, Enrico Gasparotto (Astana), Jelle Vanendert (Lotto Belisol), Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) all passed him. Even late escapee Oscar Freire (Katusha) who boldly attacked with 11km remaining and almost won the race, managed to finish ahead of Gilbert, who could only salvage a sixth place.

"Let's put it this way: right now it's not pleasant. Also because it is difficult to find a way out, to analyse why I'm lacking shape," Gilbert said before the race.

It's just become a little more unpleasant and confounding for Philippe, who can take cold comfort in knowing his form is on the rise, albeit not nearly quick enough.

If it were not for Evans, BMC would be without a victory this season. Extraordinary for a team boasting so much star power, so much potential and so much money.

So why has Cadel not let the green get to him?

Maybe it has something to do with Evans' missed opportunities at the Tour de France, when, through no fault of his own, he should have ridden the race at least two years earlier than he did (2005 was his first, where he finished eighth overall to Lance Armstrong, the Texan's seventh consecutive victory).

Instead, he found himself mired within the toxic culture at Team Telekom; where malpractice and mismanagement went hand in hand, where results would come at any expense, including a rider's health. As his former mountain bike coach Damian Grundy told me in an interview with Cycling Central last year, Cadel wanted no part of it and was therefore not selected for the Tour in 2003/04, despite being in top shape and one of their strongest riders.

It was not till he turned 33 that Cadel found a team that understood him, that truly believed in him, and one year later before BMC provided a motley crew that could help him win La Grande Boucle, which he duly did.

Now 35, Evans has one, maybe two, more bona fide shots to win again. Unsurprisingly, his 2012 sporting goal is to repeat his feat of yesteryear. Though come July, you might see BMC being more assertive than before.

"As we go in as favourites, we also sometimes might have to take the race in our own hands more often than we did in previous years. So we need an even more solid team for that," he told the Herald Sun a week ago in London, over in the British capital for some sponsor commitments, with a view to contest both the Olympic Games road race and time trial straight after this year's Tour, slated for July 28 and August 1, respectively.

An "even more solid team" BMC is on paper in 2012, and likely will be when this year's Tour lines up in Liege on June 30 for the Grand Depart.

Though perhaps riders like Hushovd and Gilbert need to take a leaf out of the Book of Cadel, who appreciates and understands the meaning of lost opportunities.

For if he is to win again, all nine men need to be at their very best.